Recently, Disney formally filed a counterclaim against Huawei at the Mannheim Regional Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), seeking a declaration that Huawei’s EP3211897 patent is invalid.

This case stems from the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Huawei against Disney, which is pending before the Mannheim Regional Division of the UPC. Huawei alleges that the Disney Group and 12 of its subsidiaries have infringed its European patent EP3211897, titled “Methods and Apparatus for Encoding and Decoding Transform Coefficients,” which has been incorporated into the Avanci video patent pool, of which Huawei is one of the licensors.

On August 4, 2026, the UPC Mannheim Regional Division published Disney’s motion to dismiss the counterclaim, which had been formally filed on July 20. Previously, Disney had filed similar motions against Adeia and InterDigital; it has since reached a settlement with Adeia, but the dispute with InterDigital continues.

The case is currently pending.

Case Background

In late 2025, Huawei filed an HEVC/H.265 patent infringement lawsuit against Disney in the First Regional Court of Munich, Germany;

On January 30, 2026, Huawei filed a lawsuit with the Mannheim Regional Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) against The Walt Disney Company and 12 of its subsidiaries, alleging infringement of its European patent EP3211897;

On July 20, 2026, Disney formally filed a counterclaim for invalidation with the Mannheim Regional Division of the UPC, seeking a declaration that Huawei’s EP3211897 patent is invalid.